Republicans Are Failing America: Coronavirus Response Mirrors Climate Response

5 years ago Scott Cooney 0 Comments
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Conservative politicians across the country are still not taking Coronavirus seriously, as CleanTechnica analyst Mike Barnard pointed out. Potentially, because their leader still seems confused about it. Down-rank Republicans are following in the POTUS’ line of thinking. In Mississippi, for instance, the Republican governor has actively resisted a statewide shelter-in-place order, saying that he wanted to make decisions “based on experts.” Perhaps he considers right wing media personalities Alex Jones or Geraldo Rivera experts (if you haven’t seen Alex Jones’ toothpaste that kills coronavirus, or Geraldo’s DIY coronavirus test on Fox News, it’s worth a watch).

He’s not alone. Republican governors across the country are gambling with our lives.

I plotted the states that have issued Shelter-in-place orders as of March 31st…

(States in blue have mandatory shelter-in-place. Red states have resisted health experts’ pleas to do the same. Grey states above have stopped short of shelter-in-place but have ordered all non-essential businesses to close.)

Perhaps not so amazingly, the party of science denialism and Drill Baby Drill politics are also failing us on the next pandemic — climate change. I plotted the map of states that have committed to a clean energy revolution, with what’s known as a renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

Look familiar?

And of course, the election maps of 2012 and 2016, for context (images from Wikipedia).

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Scott Cooney

Scott Cooney (LinkedIn) is a serial eco-entrepreneur focused on making the world a better place for all its residents. Scott is the founder of CleanTechnica and was just smart enough to hire someone smarter than him to run it. He then started Pono Home, a service that greens homes, which has performed efficiency retrofits on more than 20,000 homes and small businesses, reducing carbon pollution by more than 27 million pounds a year and saving customers more than $6.3 million a year on their utilities. Scott wanted to contribute to native ownership of the clean energy revolution, so he gifted Pono Home to a long tenured employee with native Hawaiian roots for just the liquidation value, turning down a mainland company interested in purchasing the company. In a previous life, Scott was an adjunct professor of Sustainability in the MBA program at the University of Hawai'i, a consultant at Saatchi & Saatchi S, where he worked with a team to educate and empower millions of employees to live healthier and more sustainably. He is the author of Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur (McGraw-Hill) , and Green Living Ideas. Scott is an occasional investor, currently he has investments in Rivian (RIVN).

Scott Cooney has 178 posts and counting. See all posts by Scott Cooney